Lucy Vickery

In Competition 2821 you were invited to supply a poem that provides instruction or useful information. This challenge was, of course, a nod to Virgil, whose Georgics, a didactic poem spanning four books, is part agricultural manual, part political poem. Although it was published way back in 29 bc or thereabouts, its lessons can still be applied today: a team of Italian archaeologists recently planted a vineyard in Sicily using Virgilian techniques. Although Virgil was the inspiration, the brief did not specify that entries be written in dactylic hexameter (Bill Greenwell’s was: impressive); neither were you committed to a theme of agriculture and country life. The winners pocket £25 each. Brian Murdoch takes the bonus fiver.

In Competition 2820 you were invited to supply a postscript to any well-known novel.   This challenge was suggested by a reader who drew my attention to Barbara Hardy’s neo-Victorian gem Dorothea’s Daughter and Other Nineteenth Century Postscripts, which includes afterwords to Little Dorrit and Mansfield Park. I hoped it might appeal to anyone who has ever wondered whether Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy lived happily ever after.   Peter Ridley, Josephine Boyle, Rob Stuart and Adrian Fry were strong runners-up. The winners pocket £25 each and this week’s top dog is D.A. Prince, who takes £30. Ralph winced as the man, porphory-faced and fleshy, seized his hand. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Long time ...

In Competition 2819 you were invited to write a poem either in free verse mocking rhymed, metrical verse or in conventional verse mocking free verse.   Auden was no fan of vers libre: ‘If one plays a game, one needs rules, otherwise there is no fun.’ (D.H. Lawrence, he felt, was one of the few poets who could pull free verse off.) But there are those who question the designation ‘free’. The poet and critic Yvor Winters maintained that ‘the free verse that is really verse, the best, that is, of ...Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Ezra Pound is the antithesis of free.’ And T.S. Eliot agreed with him. Last time this comp was run, the jury was split. This time round most of you came down on Auden’s side.

In Competition 2818 you were asked to merge two literary classics and provide a synopsis of the new title. You obviously had great fun with this one. Frank Osen came up with Pollyanna Karenina: ‘A girl from New England is so relentlessly upbeat about her affair with a Russian aristocrat that he throws himself under a passing train’; and A Dance to the Music of Time Management for Dummies: ‘This deluxe boxed set includes many helpful organising tips that will have you breezing through the 12-novel series in only a few hours.’ Mae Scanlan’s pun-packed blend of Henry Gray and Dorian Gray made me laugh, as did Sylvia Fairley’s Life of Roo. John O’Byrne’s Waugh-Mantel mash-up, Bring up the Vile Bodies, also warrants an honourable mention.

In Competition 2817 you were asked to provide a poem, in the manner of Harry Graham’s Perverted Proverbs, questioning the wisdom of a popular proverb. Graham was an immensely gifted lyricist and poet. In 1903, in the guise of one Col. D. Streamer, he published Perverted Proverbs: A Manual of Immorals for the Many, in which he brilliantly exposed the absurdity at the heart of those maddening nuggets of so-called wisdom that are trotted out when you least want to hear them. You weren’t obliged to follow Graham’s metre and rhyme, but those who did so earned extra points. Nick Grace and Brian Allgar deserve an honourable mention. The winners, below, earn £25 each; Chris O’Carroll takes £30.

In Competition 2816 you were invited to submit a short story with an ingenious twist at the end. I was inspired to set this challenge after coming across O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’ and then rereading Maupassant’s quietly devastating ‘The Necklace’. The moral of Bill Greenwell’s tale — dishonesty pays — struck me as a neat counterpoint to Maupassant. The winners earn £25 each. G.M. Davis takes the bonus fiver.   I answered the knock and was struck dumb. It was 20 years since we’d lived together. I’d undergone sea changes, but she was no different: the pleated pink minidress, the rhinestone gladiator sandals, glamour slap à la Joan Collins. Too late to invent an excuse: I had to let her in.

In Competition 2814 you were invited to describe how a great writer stumbled upon an idea that he or she later put to good use. Thanks to Messrs Allgar and Moore, Brians both, for suggesting that I challenge competitors to imagine the unlikely circumstances in which the seeds of great literary works were sown. I enjoyed Chris O’Carroll’s tale of the genesis of that famous stage direction ‘Exit pursued by a bear’ and John O’Byrne’s account of Samuel Beckett waiting with his mother for a bus that never comes. Stephen Walsh finds the origins of Hemingway’s spare, muscular prose in the classroom. The winners take £25 each. Lydia Shaxberd earns £30. Exhausted from his play, young Beckett slumped under the solitary tree.

In Competition 2813 you were invited to submit an application in verse, from the poet of your choice, for the position of poet laureate. There were robust bids from poets who were passed over for the laureateship on account of their questionable politics — Pope, for example, and Milton — as well as from those that made the grade: Betjeman, Hughes, Wordsworth and Nahum Tate all threw their hat in the ring. Other eloquent pleas came from McGonagall, who would surely have challenged Alfred Austin for the crown of worst rhymester, Ogden Nash and Dylan Thomas. Mae Scanlan, Gerard Benson, Mike Morrison, Sylvia Fairley and Paul Evans were unlucky losers. The winners take £30 each. Alanna Blake earns £35.

In Competition No. 2812 you were invited to provide a poem celebrating bookshops. Space is tight, which leaves room only for a congratulatory slap on the back all-round but especially to unlucky losers Max Ross, who submitted a clever acrostic, Gerard Benson, James Leslie-Melville, Lydia Shaxberd, Alison Zucker and Annette Field. The prizewinners below earn £25 each. W.J. Webster takes the bonus fiver. Let’s all now give a big and grateful hand To firms whose livelihood is print, retail: Each member of this much beleaguered band Plays its own part in keeping books for sale. Not always loved, the large emporial stores (Where volumes are the measure of their trade), Show how the house of books has many floors And bears an aura that we can’t let fade.